


Shrapnel

by GlitchTheRoboticShadow



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Gallavich, M/M, Memories, Reincarnation, Soulmate AU, WWII, past death, past depression, tags added as they become relevant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-17 00:18:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4645368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlitchTheRoboticShadow/pseuds/GlitchTheRoboticShadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ian Gallagher starts remembering memories he doesn't believe are his own, he seeks answers from the one constant in his mystery past; the man with FUCK U-UP tattooed on his knuckles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One Death and One Close Call

"Ian, buddy, listen. You gotta stay with me, alright?" The voice was just a distant buzz fading into the blurry background zooming around Ian, as he lay in the dugout. He'd just shipped out, there was no way he had already been shot, was already bleeding out into the dirt beneath him, like he was an extra in a war movie. He'd trained so hard, it couldn't all just be thrown away because of a trick shot. He hadn't even seen a shooter.

"Gallagher, the Med's coming. Just hold on." Rupert, that was Rupert's voice. Yeah, he'd trained with Rupert. He knew him. Rupert was the little shit who'd sneak out in the middle of the night. The one who'd try to smuggle extra booze into camp. He was a mischievous shit and he more than once got them all in trouble, but his heart was in the right place. Ian had heard that he enlisted to help his family and disabled friend.

Ian coughed and turned to face the sound of his friend's voice, "You're foot." He managed to sputter after seeing the shrewd remains of the man's left foot, if it could even be called a foot anymore. Practically completely blown off.

"Ah, it's nothing, barely a scratch." The small lilt of a Scottish accent was buried in his voice. Ian could hear the panic beneath the blasé exterior. He could taste something metallic-y in his mouth. Blood. He didn't like it.

"Holy shit," Someone else was there now. Who? Ian didn't know, the edges of his vision were clouding black and he felt the strong urge to just go to sleep.

"He's lost a lot of blood, Jeremy." Rupert said. Oh, Jeremy. Ian knew Jeremy. Rupert was leaning over Ian, slapping him lightly on the cheek a few times, muttering,  _hold on, just hold on._

"I know-fuck! Blair, your fucking foot!"

"It's fine, focus on Gallagher." Rupert assured.

Jeremy sighed, "Wrap it up." He tossed something to Rupert, probably bandages. "We gotta move him. He won't last out here. You gonna be able to move?"

"Yes, let's just get a fucking move-Gallagher!"

Ian's vision went black.

 

* * *

 

 

Ian faded in and out of consciousness a few times. The first time had been when Jeremy and Rupert were hauling him back to base camp to get him a ride to the clinic. The second was at the clinic, except it looked different than he remembered. Nurses zoomed around wearing- dresses? The place was a mess, bodies strewn on the floor, men on makeshift beds, some with gaping wounds. Moaning wafted through the building along with the sound of people giving orders in another language, he was too exhausted to differentiate which one.

The pain was a heavy ache in his side, but it was warm, almost hot. He could feel something wet and sticky plastering his clothes to his skin.

"He was hit by shrapnel. I think it missed his vitals, but he's lost a shit ton of blood." A man said, a new man. Not Rupert. This guy was shorter, with black hair. He was pale and stayed right by Ian's side as the nurse began working on him. 

"Put hands here." The nurse commanded, her accent thick as she grabbed the man's hands, placing them on Ian's lower abdomen. The nurse disappeared before reemerging into Ian's sight and injecting him with something.

"Keep pressure!" The nurse yelled.

God, Ian was so tired. So exhausted. He just wanted to close his eyes. "Stay awake! You fucking here me? Stay. Awake." The man sounded desperate, on the verge of tears. He looked straight into Ian's eyes as he said the words. He had amazing blue eyes. They were so soft, not fitting of the man's hard shell. But his eyes conveyed how much he wanted- _needed_ , Ian to just stay awake, stay conscious.

"Fuck, we're losing him." The man said, anger now boiling in his voice. The nurse was yelling out in her native language, blood everywhere.

Ian wanted to stay now. He wanted the man to stop being sad and angry. He wanted to hop off the table and stick around until he was eighty. He wanted to stare into those blue eyes until the last sunset Earth ever witnessed. He didn't want to leave.

But he knew it was too late.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ian heard beeping. A steady beeping, constant and unwavering. He wanted it to stop, it was annoying. He wanted to go back to wherever he'd been, he wanted to see the blue-eyed man again. He heard a door open and shut.

"He's still unconscious, but you should be able to talk to him in a few hours at most." A woman said, her voice was higher in pitch and sounded as though it should've been soft and willowy, but it was hard and stern.

"He's so pale." Came another woman's choked voice, broken and swollen from crying.

"Yes, he lost a lot of blood. Lucky he's still with us. And without any permanent physical damage."

"What about mental?" 

The first woman sighed, "There's no saying. Most people don't walk away from a close call like this one unscathed. PTSD is definitely in the running. We'll keep a good eye on him and we suggest you do the same. The important thing is that he's alive."

"When will the other's be able to see him?"

"Give him a little time. We don't want to overwhelm him when he comes to. It was a very traumatic incident. Keep it to two or three people at a time."

The door opened and closed again.

"Hey, buddy." The second woman's voice was a lot closer now, she was holding his hand. "It's Fiona. Lip's out in the waiting room with the kids. They're all going crazy waitin' to see you."

She paused, long and heavy. Her strangled sobs filled the small room, as her tears spilled onto the back of Ian's hand.

"You really fucking scared me, Ian. I thought we'd lost you. Lip broke two plates, a lamp, and put a hole in our wall when I told him what happened. We argued, holy shit did we argue. About you. About you enlisting. Poor Debs, she just sat on the stares, crying." Another pause, "Just-just don't ever do that again. Please? I don't know-" She choked, "I don't know what I'd do without you." She kissed his hand and then fell into silence.

 

* * *

 

_"Shit, Levinski's down." Ian said, ducking back into the dugout._

_"The fuck do you mean Levinski's down? He's our only other medic!" The black haired man said, peeking out from the security of their pit. Shells were exploding around them, trees blowing apart. Levinski lay on the ground a mere twenty feet away, his leg blown clean off from the knee down. He was writhing and calling for a Medic._

_"We gotta go get him." Ian said._

_"It's fucking pouring out there. We'll be blown to pieces!"_

_"We can't just fucking leave him!" Ian protested, only to turn and see his counterpart already at his side._

_"We're not going to." The man's voice was gruff and irritated as he pulled out a flask and took a quick gulp before passing it to Ian, who obliged._

_The black haired man reached over and pulled Ian to him by his neck, smashing their lips together in a chaste kiss, over far too soon for Ian's liking. The man jumped out of the dugout, Ian following suit as they crouched and rushed to Levinski's side._

_"We got you." Ian assured the fallen soldier as he hefted Levinski up by the arms, while the blue-eyed man took his legs. They hurried toward the pit. Explosions went off in all directions, there was no sound except for that of screams, rumbling, and the ringing in his ears. Shells started landing closer and closer in rapid succession when one went off and a piece of its metal blew straight into Ian's lower abdomen._

_With a thud, he hit the ground, the sharp sensation plunging deeper into his torso. He couldn't remember how to walk. How to think. Shock was setting in and the pain only increased by the second._

_Someone grabbed his ankle and dragged him back to the dugout, where everything went dark._

 

* * *

 

 

Lip sat in Ian's room, huddled up by Fiona's side. She was asleep, her head buried in Lip's shoulder, his shirt still damp from her tears. Kev and Vee had shown up to watch the kids so that he and Fiona could be there when Ian came to.

The quiet of the room and the consistent beeping gave Lip the opportunity to think, which he really didn't want. Thinking wasn't good when he was upset, it only led to being upset even further. He couldn't help but revisit every fight he had with Ian, every argument Ian had with Fiona. His mind kept trudging up ideas that Ian only enlisted to get away from his family, away from  _Lip._

He felt like he had practically put Ian in that bed himself. He wouldn't admit that, never out loud, but the thoughts in his head were all his own and no one could interrupt or take them.

Ian's eyes slowly slid open, his expression bleary as he squinted at the ceiling lights. "Fi, he's awake." Lip nudged Fiona and she flinched into an upright position, sitting there for a moment before realizing what Lip had said. She zoomed to Ian's side, taking a seat next to his bed and clutching his hand.

"Ian?" She said, her voice gentle, like she was afraid she'd startle him back into unconsciousness.

Ian turned to face her and the smallest of smiles broke onto his face. "Fi?" His head lifted to meet Lip's gaze, "Lip? You guys are here?"

Fiona let out a broken chuckle, "'course we're here. Where else would we be when our little brother got himself shot?"

"Actually," Lip said, sitting down next to Fiona, "He was apparently hit by stray shrapnel. Wasn't even cool enough to be taken down by an actual person."

Ian laughed, it was weak and broken. His eyes didn't look at one place for too long, his meds making him loopy. He squeezed Fiona's hand and sighed, "I'm glad you guys are here."

Lip shrugged, trying to force the tears welling in his eyes to suck back in, "Yeah, well, we're glad you're alive."


	2. A Time to Enlist

_"It's here." Ian said, stepping into the small dining room where the blue-eyed man was sitting at the table. The man looked up from the paper he was reading. His face was gaunt and he reached for the letter Ian held in his hand. He passed it to him and the blue eyes skimmed the parchment, his face growing more gruesome with each line._

_"You've been drafted?" He asked, meeting Ian's eyes, his voice raw and his eyes soft._

_"It was only a matter of time." Ian sat down next to the man, "I would've felt like shit if I didn't help, anyway."_

_The man tossed the letter onto the table, his irritation apparent, "Where's mine?"_

_"You're notice? You didn't get one."_

_The man's leg was bouncing with nervous energy as he chewed on his knuckles. They were tattooed with the words,_ Fuck U-UP.  _"The fuck do you mean I didn't get one? They think they can just ship you out without me?" He pushed away from the table, abruptly standing up. He started pacing the room, still worrying his knuckles._

_"Adam-"_

_"I don't want to hear it, Ethan. I'm enlisting first thing tomorrow. There's no way I'm letting you do this on your own."_

_"I won't be on my own. We wouldn't even have a guarantee that we'd be in the same battalion."_

_"It doesn't matter," Adam stopped pacing and took Ian's face in his hands, resting his forehead against Ian's, "If you leave, there's no point to me here. I'm going with you. Okay?"_

_Ian gulped and nodded, taking in the closeness and sincerity of the moment. Adam stooped and connected their lips, "I love you, I'm not going to leave you."_

_"No one can know," Ian said, "about us."_

_"That's no different than how it is here."_

Ian woke up with a deep ache in his chest...and his side. He reached over to his nightstand and grabbed his pills, dry swallowing them. Fiona had insisted that he stay with them, but Ian needed some breathing room. Between almost dying and the weird dreams he'd been having. 

He stayed in a small apartment not too far from the Gallagher's. Fiona came by everyday with a container of soup, lecturing him about how he needed to eat more. He didn't see how anymore consumption of food was going to help. He didn't understand these weirdly vivid dreams. They weren't like any dreams he'd had before. Usually when he'd dream, it was complete chaos, when he'd wake up, he'd see how lacking in logic the dream really was, but it wasn't like that with these ones. And he'd never seen that  _Adam_ before in real life. He didn't think he had, at least.

His phone buzzed against the oak wood of the stand. Ian grabbed it and answered, knowing very well who it was. Lip always called in the morning. Ian didn't know how, but he always called not too long after Ian woke up.

"Yeah?"

"You take your meds?" Lip asked, he sounded like he was outside.  _School,_ Ian's mind supplied, but that didn't make sense. Today was Saturday. He probably had some ridiculous job or party to go to.

"Yes, I took them. My fucking body wouldn't let me not take them."

"Yeah, yeah. Fi told me to ask you whether you want chicken noodle or tomato today?"

"Tomato, with grilled cheese, if that's not too much trouble."

Lip scoffed, "She'd make you an entire fucking turkey if you asked her."

"She still feel guilty?" Ian raised his arm to rub the back of his neck, like he often did when he was nervous, but it tugged at his stitches, he winced at the pain.

"'course she does," Lip sighed, "We all do."

Ian groaned and flopped back onto his pillow. "You guys have a serious self deprecation problem."

"Like you're so holier than thou, Mister  _Enlist in the Military._ "

"Lots of people enlist, Lip. It's not a suicidal thing."

"Yeah, well, look where you ended up."

"Alive?"

"God, you are such a fuckwad."

"Can't argue with you there."

"I gotta go. Don't do anything stupid."

"When do I ever?" Ian asked, making his tone extra sweet just to piss off his brother.

Lip scoffed, "Yeah, bye."

"Bye."

 

 

* * *

 

_"I don't know if I can do this anymore,"  Levinski said, rocking back and forth, his arms crossed over his chest in an attempt to keep warm. The harsh could encapsulate the forest, leaving a blanket of snow all around them. "We fucking lost Clarke."_

_"Levinski, I'm gonna need you to stay calm, okay? Should I send you back? Can you stand in the midst of combat?" Ian asked, taking the man's shoulder in his hand._

_Levinski nodded, his eyes plastered to the ground, "I can do this."_

_"Good." Adam said, slapping the man on the arm, "You're one of our best medics, we're gonna need your head clear."_

_"We're the_ only  _medics." Levinski reminded._

_Adam took drag of his cigarette, "Take the compliment kid."_

_Levinski sighed, smiled, and shuffled to his feet, "I'm gonna make the rounds. Probably not best to keep all our medics in one spot, anyhow."_  

_He crawled out of the dugout and disappeared into the clouded trees to make sure everyone was set. Ian turned to his black haired companion, "The kid really admires you."_

_Adam shrugged, offering the smoke to Ian, who took it and savored the burn in his throat against the cold taking over his body. "Don't see why, we're all fucked in the end, however you spin it."_

_Ian rolled his eyes and gave the cigarette back, "Why are you always such a pessimist?"_

_"Because we're in the middle of a fucking war and it's so foggy I can barely see my balls, let alone the enemy." Adam grunted and smothered the cigarette in the snow._

_"Not_ everyone  _dies in war, Adam."_

_"Yeah, well don't go fooling yourself into thinkin' you'll live. That's some dangerous shit. Most of the guys have already accepted their grizzly death."_

_"Never said I was gonna live. Just reminding you that some do and we're fighting for them and for the people-" Ian was distracted from his speech of optimism by the sound of explosions and shards of tree showering over them._

 

"Ian, Ian, you listenin'?" Fiona asked, gently grasping his shoulder and pulling him from his reverie. The words, _we're all fucked_ were swimming around in his head, the blue-eyed man still vivid in his mind. "Kid, you okay?"

He nodded and gulped, his throat suddenly dry. A chill stayed steady on his spine and he could swear he could  _feel_ the cold of winter against his pale skin. "Yeah, I'm good." He said, grabbing the plastic containers of soup and grilled cheese, putting them in the fridge.

"You're not hungry?" Fi asked, her brow furrowed in concern. 

_Not anymore,_ his mind supplied but that seemed too cryptic of an answer, "Nah, had a big breakfast." He lied easily.

Fiona didn't seem convinced as she stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder, "Well, I've gotta get going, my shift starts in twenty." She reached over and grabbed Ian's neck, placing a quick kiss on his cheek, she rubbed at the spot with her thumb, "Take care of yourself, alright?"

Ian nodded and put his hand on her's.

"I'll be out in a minute." Lip said, waving for Fiona to leave. Once she was gone, Lip fixed Ian with a look embedded with a cocktail of emotions, concern, annoyance, and curiosity. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

Lip rolled his eyes and groaned, "Come on, Ian. You were a total space cadet. I'm surprised you even realized we were here."

"Me? You were the one that barely said a word."

"That's 'cause I was too busy watching you with your glazed over eyes and fucking expression of stupor."

"I almost died, I can't be a little out of it?" Ian's voice was laced with anxiety and utter irritation.

"Dude, I'm your brother! You can talk to me, stop with this whole Bruce Wayne mysterious aura shit."

"I'm not being mysterious! I'm a  _big boy,_ Lip, I can take care of myself."

"Well, then fucking act like it! Adults don't bottle shit up."

"Yeah, apparently they make a big deal out of fucking nothing!" Ian spat, the space between him and his brother slowly disappearing.

"Big deal out of nothing?" Lip slammed his fist against the wall, "You fucking enlisted without a word, Ian! You didn't say goodbye or where you were going! You just up and left! Do you know what that kind of shit does to your family?"

There it was. Ian knew this wasn't about him spacing out. Lip had assured him that he'd forgiven him for enlisting, but Ian didn't buy it for a minute. "I-I had my reasons." Ian faltered, stepping back and frantically combing his hand through his too-long red hair.

"You had your reasons?" Lip whispered, his voice shaking. "Ian, whatever they were, it didn't warrant you not saying goodbye. If you had seen Debbie, Fiona or even Carl, you wouldn't be so quick to defend yourself." His voice was eerily calm, which made Ian's skin crawl, especially because he knew his brother was right. He didn't have a good reason for leaving without telling anyone. The thought of upsetting his siblings so unjustly made him wish he'd died from the stray shrapnel.

Ian sighed and flopped into a chair by the table, tossing his head into his hands. his brain felt all jumbled and disoriented. Maybe it was the meds, or the dreams, or just some form of PTSD that was slowly driving him toward the edge of madness, but it didn't really matter what was doing it. He could feel himself crumbling, like an old plate, chipping apart from too many years of use, the glue so close, but just out of reach.

Lip took the seat next to him, angling toward his brother. "I'm textin' Fi to go on ahead without me. I'm stayin' here and you're gonna talk to me."

 

* * *

 

 

"I don't understand what the big deal is here." Lip said, dipping his half of grilled cheese sandwich in the tomato soup. "Sounds like you're just having some bad dreams. Makes sense considering what you've been through." Of course Lip would try to find the logical solution to the weird mess that was Ian's life. He couldn't blame him, after all, who wouldn't turn to logic? But Ian needed his brother to be more open-minded, or it was going to be very tiresome to talk to him.

"They're not just dreams, Lip. They're so real, like I've actually plucked memories out of someone else's mind. And I've never seen that guy before." Ian explained, mouth half full of food. 

"Adam? The guy you were getting frisky with?"

"We were not  _getting frisky._ " Ian chided, "But yes, him. I think I'd remember seeing him in person."

Lip's leg bounced under the table, one of his hands resting on his knee as he buzzed in thought, "Maybe it's a side effect of the meds you're taking."

"Maybe," Ian muttered, "I just can't shake this weird feeling. It's unsettling."

Lip shrugged, "If it's buggin' you so much, we can do some research. You know the guy's last name?"

Ian paused, trying to conjure up the surname. It had never been said in any of his dreams-or whatever they were-but he could feel it on the tip of his tongue. "Andreiko."

"Okay, we've got something to work with."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the lovely comments on the last chapter. Hope you enjoyed this one! Leave me some feedback in the comments.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thanks for reading the first chapter. Let me know what you think in the comments.


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